Thursday, August 7, 2014

Chris Bianco Talks Tucson on Eater

The Weekly clearly has pizza on its mind (no joke, I could really go for a slice right now), but regardless, it's worth noting that food mega-blog Eater ran an interview with Chris Bianco yesterday in honor of his two weeks-ish of being open here in Tucson. He talks quite a bit about what it's like here for him and his new place:

Congratulations on the Tucson location. I know you're just a few days in on that, but how is it all going?

It's really special. As you get older, the hope is that the next thing you do is the best thing you've ever done. The opportunity for this project in Tucson was to keep it as close to the original as I could. But what would I do differently? [Opening in Tucson was] just getting to really take inventory of where you are.

Pizza, like every dish on the planet, is only as good as the ingredients.I opened in 1988. I know I'm a better restaurant now because pizza, like every dish on the planet, is only as good as the ingredients. Technique will always be [important], but it'll never be more important than sourcing great flour varietals, and the great artisan cheeses that are available today that weren't there before. I mean, shit, back in the day, I begged somebody to grow arugula for me. All the things that are so commonplace now were really a challenge to get at the highest level. Now we have so many great farmers and suppliers. It makes it special.

The entire interview's worth reading, if only to understand what makes the guy such a great chef.